Member's statement: Israeli Hostages
Member's statement by Mr Timothy Gaston on .
- MLA
- Mr Timothy Gaston
- Party at the time
- Traditional Unionist Voice
- Date
- 24 February 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Israeli Hostages
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4813429
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The bodies of 34-year-old Shiri Bibas and her children — four-year-old Ariel and six-month old Kfir Bibas — who were kidnapped on 7 October 2023, were supposed to be handed over during a sickening ceremony on Thursday. On Friday, it emerged that the body of Shiri Bibas had not been returned as promised, and authorities had to wait another day to get it. The coffins released on Friday were locked, resulting in painful delays in the processes for Israeli authorities, because they feared that the coffins could literally blow up in their faces. Those were horrific circumstances for the families and the Israeli authorities to deal with. Yet, to enter this very Chamber, Members pass a portrait of someone who was linked to similar behaviour. I will read a poem called 'A Simple Set of Car Keys', which is partly based on revelations in Liam Clarke's biography of Martin McGuinness about three murders:
"A simple set of car keys, 'Nothing special' I hear you say There's a story behind these keys I'll share with you today They belong to Leslie Jarvis and his story is so sad Another killed for 'Mother Ireland' by people who are bad. As Leslie left his studies, he got into his car Not knowing that McGuinness was watching from afar. These keys in the ignition, soon Leslie will be dead His killers crept up silently and shot Leslie in the head. Not happy with one killing, the Provos hatched a plan. They'd boobytrap Leslie's body and murder a policeman. The RUC came rushing after the shots rang round the town. The Provo Commander watched as the cordon was put down. Two officers approached the car and opened Leslie's door. One reached for Leslie's briefcase beside the body on the floor. An explosion ripped the car apart, three men left mangled and dead. The bloodlust of that Provo Commander well and truly fed. A simple set of car keys, 'Very special' I hear you say. They tell a story of three men who I honour in my own way."
The names of the men referenced in the poem are Chief Instructor Leslie Jarvis, Detective Inspector Austin Wilson and Sergeant John Bennison, who were murdered at Magee College in Londonderry on 23 March 1987. Some people in the House make a virtue out of not meeting Donald Trump because of his policy on the Middle East. Perhaps the truth is that they are closer to Hamas, in ideology and tactics, than they are to any innocent Palestinian civilian with whom they claim to sympathise.
427 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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